tetsuya takahashi read like 5 pop psychology books in the 90s then wrote 20 or so rough ideas on post it notes that he has since used as the guide for his entire career.

this game is a amalgamation of the two xenoblades behind it held up by threads of ideas established in the games even older than them. this union feels wonderful and fresh when the game is taking old areas and assets and giving them new life in a new context. two worlds never meant to be together are forced to mesh into one place. cohesive and natural to those who live in it but off putting and exciting to those who’ve seen these individual elements in their original settings. the world of this game, when it isn’t resting on its laurels is beautiful.

early on the story feels the same, there’s a familiarity to its plot and the motions it goes through but it’s playing with new and interesting ideas. an endless proxy war where no real ground is seeded fought just so the people in power who rely on the war machine to survive have said war machine is fucking great. the concept of a life that is trapped to never live past 10 years, constantly living and dying in the same cycle restricted so one stays complacent is fucking biting. but then the game just starts falling back on doing the same things the previous games did, verbatim. areas become the most obvious fusions they could be, the story starts falling into the same grooves every xenoblade game does and the beat by beat plot summary becomes indistinguishable from a friends hazy retelling of the previous games stories. the main characters into cybernetic bodies, the worlds fusing, a god killed to bring about a new future. it uses synonyms but it’s the same story with the edges filed off.

the more the writing follows previous stories the more the idea of “the endless now, a cyclical forever” nags at the back of your head as meta commentary. but if it is, is that pull worth bringing the rest of the game down with it?

that’s not even covering the weaker main characters and absolutely nothing shit boring gameplay. the main cast are all charming but not in any real distinct way. they have moments where they all individually really shine (esp mio, eunie and lanz ) but another 80 hours where they’re nothing more then a face to cut to in a reaction shot. this game wants to hold all 6 main characters up equally as protagonist without having the understanding that those characters have to have 6 unique voices.

this also is painfully felt in it’s gameplay. xc2 is tutorialess and rough for hours on end but as more mechanics are stacked and stacked and you grow attuned to how they all connect it becomes incredibly rewarding, it’s just plain fun. the more xenoblade chronicles 3 adds to its combat the more boring it becomes. trying to balance the clashing styles of 1 and 2s combat in the agnian and kevesi units in the early game is the most fun the combat ever is.

the second you have 7 bodies on screen all buzzing and yapping with numbers and buffs flying about as every character tries to find the moment to unleash their super awesome mega hyper attack it just feels like too much. like something that’s trying to get your attention by being as flashy and loud as it possibly that it wraps around to being nothing. you might as well tune it out. there’s no channeling the chaos into something great. there’s not substance to it. there’s just smashing and slashing till you get bored and hit the auto button.

this game could never be what i wanted it to be. a child of early covid development and the need to make a new Product to continue a Franchise it didn’t have much going for it. im aware some of my issues are supposedly solved in future redeemed but that’s a solution that isn’t in the base game. it doesn’t fix the problems i have in any real way.

i think i still love it this game though, the main story is overwrought and downright awful at points but when it’s cooking it’s cooking. there’s a few side missions in this game that remind me why i hold this series as close to my chest as i do.

there’s this dictator that thinks he’s a pirate. this immortal being that lives off the death and rebirth of the soldiers under his thumb and uh, he fucking hates it. living this endless nothing has left him discontent, life loses its meaning when it’s unchanging. he took this forever out of fear he wouldn’t get to do everything he wanted to do in life but he comes to the conclusion that would have been okay. he starts to treat those under his command as companions on a pirate crew. he’s still in control of them, he’s aware of this fact but he can’t not be. he’s the equivalent of “the one good ceo” trying to truly help those working under him while still being the parasite that is only alive because of them.

he doesn’t want this though. even if the lives under him are improved under his “loving fist” their still under someone in the first place.
in his owns words he’s seen so many people who could have lived for their own reasons. lived to hunt, to sail, to make art all filed into living for the same reason. to survive. the system we live under not giving anyone any other choice. he says that if his living in the world is what prevents it from changing for the better then maybe it’s better off he’s dead and out of the way.

this stupid fucking “pirate villain” side quest brings me back to my overheated attic bedroom lit exclusively by my tv playing that last hour of xenoblade chronicles in 2018.

it brings me back to the moment i realized tthe discontent i felt with with world could be aimed like a weapon to make a future where we get the choice to live for ourselves.